CDS (II) 2022 General Knowledge · Question 68 of 120

Correct — D, Manjushrimulakalpa. Ashvaghosha lived around 80 to 150 CE, was born at Saketa — the town later known as Ayodhya — and is remembered as a contemporary and probably the spiritual adviser of Kanishka. Three works are securely his, and the question lists all three among its options: the Buddhacharita, an epic life of the Buddha in classical Sanskrit and the earliest surviving Sanskrit mahakavya; the Saundarananda, a poem on the conversion of Nanda, the Buddha's half-brother; and the Shariputraprakarana, a drama that survives only in fragments recovered from Central Asia. The Manjushrimulakalpa is a different sort of text altogether — a Mahayana sutra and ritual manual associated with the bodhisattva Manjushri, classed in Tibetan Buddhism as a kriya-tantra, dated to roughly the eighth century with a possible verse core some two centuries older, and traditionally ascribed to Manjushri himself.

• (a)Sariputraprakarana — Sariputraprakarana is Ashvaghosha's, a drama on the conversion of the Buddha's disciple Shariputra. Only fragments survive, which is why it is the least familiar of his three works and therefore a tempting wrong pick.
• (b)Buddhacharita — Buddhacharita is his best-known work — the life of the Buddha as a Sanskrit epic poem, preserved in full only in Chinese and Tibetan translation beyond its surviving Sanskrit portion.
• (c)Saundarananda — Saundarananda is also his, a kavya on Nanda's reluctant conversion, and is often paired with the Buddhacharita as the two poems that put Buddhist teaching into courtly Sanskrit verse.

Ashvaghosha marks the moment when Buddhist writing moved from Pali and Prakrit into polished court Sanskrit and adopted the forms of secular literature — the mahakavya and the drama — to carry religious argument. His association with Kanishka places him in the Kushana period, the same milieu that produced the Gandhara and Mathura schools of sculpture and the fourth Buddhist council of tradition.

The reliable way through a not-the-work-of question is to know the short authentic list rather than to recognise the odd one out. Ashvaghosha's authenticated output is three titles long, and all three are printed here, so anything else on the page must be the answer. It also helps to hear the shape of the names: Buddhacharita, Saundarananda and Shariputraprakarana are narrative and dramatic titles about people, while Manjushrimulakalpa is a kalpa, a ritual manual, and manuals of that kind belong to a much later and quite different layer of Buddhist literature. A related caution for the exam: several works are attributed to Ashvaghosha without agreement among scholars, including the Sutralankara, the Vajrasuchi and the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana, so a question built on those would be poorly framed.

• Ashvaghosha lived about 80 to 150 CE, was born at Saketa, and is associated with Kanishka.
• His securely attributed works are the Buddhacharita, the Saundarananda and the Shariputraprakarana.
• The Buddhacharita is the earliest surviving Sanskrit mahakavya and narrates the life of the Buddha.
• The Manjushrimulakalpa is a Mahayana sutra and ritual manual associated with Manjushri, dated to about the eighth century and classed as a kriya-tantra.
• Works of uncertain attribution to Ashvaghosha include the Sutralankara, the Vajrasuchi and the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana.

• Confusing Ashvaghosha with Vasubandhu or Nagarjuna, all Buddhist Sanskrit authors of the early centuries CE.
• Assuming a Buddhist title in Sanskrit must belong to the best-known Buddhist Sanskrit author; the Manjushrimulakalpa is six centuries later.
• Treating disputed attributions such as the Vajrasuchi as securely his.

As a not-the-work-of item, as a match-the-author item across Buddhist Sanskrit texts, or as a which-ruler-was-he-associated-with item.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Ashvaghosha is traditionally associated with the court of which ruler?

  • (a)Ashoka
  • (b)Kanishka
  • (c)Samudragupta
  • (d)Harshavardhana

  Answer(b) Kanishka — Ashvaghosha is described as the contemporary and spiritual adviser of the Kushana ruler.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Buddhacharita of Ashvaghosha is best described as

  • (a)a collection of monastic rules
  • (b)a Sanskrit epic poem on the life of the Buddha
  • (c)a commentary on the Abhidhamma
  • (d)a Prakrit drama on court intrigue

  Answer(b) a Sanskrit epic poem on the life of the Buddha — the earliest surviving Sanskrit mahakavya.